Both quarterbacks eluded sackers to make huge, amazing plays, and Dallas emerged with a 41-37 victory.
The Cowboys, on offense and special teams anyway, seemed equal to their Super Bowl-worthy billing. The Eagles definitely showed they belonged in the conversation.
The game turned on a mistake, which seemed fitting, given everything that had happened. The Eagles seemed to be driving for either a field goal that would give them a six-point lead or a touchdown that would really put them in charge, when Donovan McNabb double-clutched a handoff to Brian Westbrook, sticking it in his belly, taking it out, then slamming it into Westbrook's hip, from which it tumbled, to be recovered by Dallas' Jay Ratliff.
"We had a fake reverse going around," McNabb said. "I went and looked at the flanker to try to sell it a little bit. I put the ball on Brian's hip, which lead to a fumble. That definitely was totally my fault."
McNabb finished 25-for-37 for 281 yards but was sacked four times. The Eagles did not sack Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.
After the fumble, the Cowboys drove 67 yards in seven plays for the final go-ahead TD of a back-and-forth evening, Marion Barber blasting it in from the 1.
It was the seventh and final lead change in the highest-scoring game in Eagles-Cowboys history.
The Eagles got the ball back at their 22 with 2 minutes and 36 seconds to work with, but after getting a first down at their 49 on a Ratliff facemask, they only marched backward. McNabb threw a no-chance pass when he had open field in front of him, then took a third-down sack that set up fourth and 17, which the Eagles tried unsuccessfully to hook-and-lateral their way through.
Eagles coach Andy Reid called it "a hard-fought game" in which "Donovan played his heart out."
